J A C K R E Y N O R
Interview & Photography { John Russo
Produced { Photohouse Productions
Grooming { Jenny Nelson for The Wall Group
Styling { Linda Medvene
Video{ Ken Waller Media
Location { Los Angeles, CA
Q: From beautiful Ireland to Hollywood, it sounds like a dream. When did you know this was going to be your destiny?
JR: I think I was very young, only five or six when I sort of got the sense that I wanted to be an actor and that it was not so much about the acting as it was the opportunity to visit the kind of places that I was seeing on TV. It looked so exciting in all these different worlds that I would see in the films that I would watch and the shows that I would watch. And I wanted to experience that. So that was where my sense of being an actor kind of came from initially. And then obviously as I got older my understanding of it evolved and I watched just so much film throughout all my time in school and just really had the sense that what I wanted to do was go into film. And that was it.
Q: You have three different projects going on, you are one busy man! Let’s talk about The Mummy. How does it feel to be part of such an iconic franchise?
JR: It was great. And for me, I love horror films and horror films have always kind of been a big part of my life. And obviously there’s not that much that’s happening in cinema these days outside of horror films and superhero films, and so even to have a movie to be front and center of something that is really opening in the cinema, that’s just a real blessing. And I am a huge fan of the legacy of Mummy films and Hammer horror really is the thing for me, so like the Mummy films with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, those are the ones I really love. And I just loved all of the Hammer horror stuff from the 50s and 60s and even the 70s. So yeah it was a big kick to be a part of this legacy of The Mummy. And I just also was like super proud to do it in Ireland and Lee is a wonderful director and a great guy and I had worked with so many of my friends, people who I had been working with for fifteen years were on that movie which was great, even my wife was working on that movie. So it was a whole family affair really, which was amazing. But yeah, I am thrilled, I am really happy with it and the reception from horror fans has been absolutely fantastic, which is great.
Q: I am going to see it tomorrow night.
JR: I hope you are not queasy, it’s a real body horror movie man, it’s in the same vein as David Cronenberg’s stuff or just gross, gross body horror. (laughs)
Q: I am sure the kids love all that!
JR: Exactly.
Q: So then after that you have this spy thriller Citadel, Season Two is coming out in May.
JR: Yeah it’s great. I think for me, the big things about that were I was going to work with Joe Russo again, who is a very good friend of mine and Stanley Tucci, who I had shot Transformers with ten years before, it was just great to get to close the lid with those guys. They are such wonderful people just to be around and brilliant people to work with. So just the prospect of spending three or four months with those guys in London was unturndownable. And we had so much fun with it, I met other people who I hadn’t worked with before on that movie who I loved. Priyanka and Richard are both legends and lovely people. And similarly Matt Berry, who is so much fun, he’s like one of the funniest men on the planet Earth and I had been such a fan of his stuff growing up, particularly The Toast of London, that was the funniest fucking show ever. It’s about actors, about jobbing actors in London, so funny. And yeah, we had Lena El Arabi on it as well who is a legend, and just great, great people and a really fun time. I think Joe had a sense that he wanted to change the tone of the show from Season One so it would be a little lighter in tone, a little bit more comedy I think if maybe you think of it more in terms of the Roger Moore Bond films rather than the Sean Connery ones if that makes any sense. (laughs) So yeah we had a great time with it man, it was a lot of fun.
Q: What do you think are some of the keys to create longevity in an actor’s career?
JR: Time spent away from the industry, critical, absolutely critical. I think that you generate the bandwidth needed to be able to work in this industry by being completely outside of it and living life. I think that the most important place where you can hone your craft as an actor is in the real world. It comes down to your capacity for empathy and compassion and your curiosity and interest in society and in people and in places. And how broad do you cast your net when you are looking for cultural context? How diverse can you be when you are considering whose shoes to put yourself in? That’s really, really, really critical. And I think that yeah, that all comes from living life in the real world. So I would say that that’s probably the number one thing for me for longevity in your career. Secondly, and it’s very tricky, it’s almost a paradox because I think there’s so many people in the film industry and in entertainment more broadly speaking, people who are very neurodivergent people, that’s obviously a label. But I think that oftentimes neurodivergent people struggle with consistency of lifestyle. And so one of the more challenging things I think for a lot of actors and certainly it was for me throughout my 20s, was building good habits. Like actually being able to consistently be on top of good nutrition, sleeping well, just keeping regular hours rather than being up at four o’clock in the morning all the time. These are things that, you can do that stuff for a certain amount of time and I guess in your 20s and probably even your 30s to an extent, but all that stuff catches up with you and your really have to look after your physical and mental health because you want to have longevity as an actor I think. Some people get away with it, but I think the best practice is you fucking look after yourself, you know what I mean?
Q: So from spending time with you I can tell that you are a very humble and down to earth guy. Sometimes fame changes people and not always for the best. How do you remain grounded in your career and in your life?
JR: Well again, I think on merit of the fact that I live in the community that I grew up in and everybody there knows me and nobody really gives a fuck about the fact that I am an actor. (laughter) Of course when I go home to Ireland, people are going to talk about The Mummy and tell me what they think about it or whatever, but when I go into my local shop or I go and sit down in the pub, people want to talk to me about what’s going on in their lives. And I am really blessed that my community has known me from the age of three years old all the way till now. And I think that as long as I connected with my community and I think as long as I am able to contribute to my community and to really be a part of it, I think that would always keep me grounded, no matter how much of that sort of element of fame would come along. I also think it’s partly about the way you carry yourself as well because I know some really, really famous people who I can go out and sit down in a bar with them and have a beer or I can go and have lunch or whatever and people don’t, it’s like people don’t see them and they don’t come up to them, because those people carry themselves just like normal people. And so it’s almost like they kind of go sort of incognito because it’s just the aura that they are giving off is that they are just like anyone else. And then sometimes you meet people who are very, very self-consciously famous. And those people are looking around to see who is looking at them all the time. If you are looking to see who is looking at you, people are going to look at you I think. So it’s funny, there’s definitely like a chicken and the egg element to that, isn’t there?
Q: One hundred percent. At the end of the day, we are all just people.
JR: Literally man. And I will say that I’ve been blessed to meet more of those kinds of nice people in the industry than the other kind.
Q: Amen to that. Thank you.
END
To learn more about Jack follow him at @jack_reynor